


The Redemption of Cornelius Fudge

by orphan_account



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Booksmart (2019), House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Awkward Boners, Bisexual Duncan, Body Paint, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Getting Together, Nudity, emotional support turkey, mentions of vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 01:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20537861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Duncan moves into a new apartment and gets an annoying next-door neighbour.





	The Redemption of Cornelius Fudge

**Author's Note:**

> The plot and characters of House of Cards belong to Neflix. Booksmart (2019) belongs to United Artists Releasing.
> 
> I borrowed a scene from Susan Juby's The Woefield Poultry Collective. Gigi's middle and last names are made up. 
> 
> All mistakes are my own.

When Duncan signed the papers for his new luxury apartment, all he was thinking about was the view. The widows stretching across the length of the 4,447 square foot tower suite offered him a truly spectacular view of downtown D.C. He’d been so entranced by the blaze of autumn leaves along the Potomac that he’d never stopped to consider the risks of sharing the tower’s top floor with another resident.

Whoever lives across from him—G. P. Levine, according to their mailbox—is some kind of Birkenstock-wearing, granola-crunching whackadoodle. It wasn’t a problem the first couple of weeks after Duncan moved in and he was gone to Los Angeles and New York. But now that he’s back in D.C. to oversee the acquisition of a local cable news network, his neighbour’s environmental and ‘spiritual’ practices are slowly driving him insane.

It started with the worm composting.

Duncan went away to stay at his mother’s house in Chesapeake Bay the same weekend that D.C. experienced an unseasonable heatwave. When he got back Sunday night, he stepped out of the tower elevator and into a wall of dead worm smell. At the time, Duncan hadn’t known that’s what he was smelling, he’d just known that his dinner was suddenly doing the reverse breaststroke. He'd stumbled over to an ornamental vase and proceeded to lose all of the steak and expensive scotch in his stomach.

The sound of his violent heaving had had his neighbour’s apartment door flying open to reveal one G. P. Levine: miniature person and amateur composter. The five-foot one ball of crazy had marched over to Duncan’s hunched over form and started ranting about the breakdown of the social contract. How could he forget to turn the air conditioner on for her red wrigglers while she was away for the weekend? And what kind of worm-sitter _was he_ that he didn’t even have the decency to dispose of the bodies? Duncan had been too stunned and nauseated to interject. He’d stood there staring at her in disbelief until she’d tired herself out.

Red in the face from giving Duncan the dressing-down of his life, his neighbour had flicked a long pigtail over her shoulder and stared at him with her doe eyes, waiting for an explanation. After what felt like an eon of awkward silence, she’d cocked her head like a confused dog, rocked back on the heels of her rubber boots and said, “I didn’t actually talk to you last Wednesday did I?”

Things only escalated from there. 

Duncan’s now subjected to the sound of Tibetan throat singing, flute solos and bird noises? at all hours of the night. And if G. P. Levine’s hobbies weren’t bad enough, the near constant scent of varnish drifts across the hallway, so strong that Duncan is half-worried he'll die of huffing fumes in his sleep. 

After a month of too much work on the merger and far too few REM cycles, he finally snaps.

\--

Rolling over to check to the clock, Duncan sees that it’s nearly 2:30am. It’s his first Saturday off in weeks. All he wants to do is stay curled up in his blankets and find sweet oblivion, but the wingnut next door is moving furniture around. 

Bleary eyed, with no shits left to give, Duncan hauls himself out of bed and stomps across the hall in his boxers. He pounds on the door with the righteous fury of a man who has well and truly been driven over the edge.

Throwing his weight into the thumping of his fist, Duncan’s caught off guard and off balance when G. P. Levine rips her door open. He tips forward mid-knock and goes down hard on his front in her entryway.

Dainty toes poke at his ribs. “Well if it isn’t Duncan Cornelius Shepherd. What perfect timing! I’ve got the canvas all set up,” she chirps.

More than Duncan's pride is bruised. He lets out a creaking moan and turns over onto his back. Cradling his cheek and chest, he wheezes, "that’s not my middle name."

Brown eyes squint at his pained face. “Really? What a shame. I’ve already nicknamed you Fudge. I was certain that the C on your mailbox stood for Cornelius. I’m Gigi by the way. Gigi Prudence Levine.”

Duncan's eyes refocus when the pain in his sternum settles enough for him to take a full breath. He realizes then that Gigi is _completely naked_. His mouth drops open and he licks his lips. Tan shoulders give way to small, yet perky breasts. A slim waist and delicately flared hips beg for his touch. He rips his eyes away from her body before they can drop below her navel. _God_. How long has it been since he’s gotten laid? He swallows a groan of arousal and waves a hand at Gigi in a ‘bro, what the fuck?' gesture.

Gigi looks down at her nakedness in confusion and says, “Armand and I weren’t expecting guests. It’s easier this way. For the cleanup.”

Duncan doesn’t whimper. He doesn’t. _Jesus Christ_. What kind of weird sex games has he stumbled into? 

“That’s nice,” he gasps. “I’ll just...leave you guys to it.” He pushes up into a sitting position and comes face to wattle with evil incarnate.

“Holy fuck!” Duncan yells, heart hammering in his chest. “That’s a fucking turkey! Why is there a turkey in your apartment!?”

“Shh!” Gigi chides him. “Armand has a nervous bladder. Please don’t yell at my emotional support turkey, he’s blind.”

“…I—what!”

Duncan swallows hard around the knot of fear in his throat. _Armand _isn't partial to his sputtering. He's puffing up his feathers and emitting a loud gurgling sound that raises the hair on the back of Duncan’s neck. He freezes, hoping that blind turkeys are like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Gigi tuts, “Armand, Fudge is our guest.” She snaps her fingers once and the creature retreats to a pile of blankets in a dark corner, its talons clicking menacingly against the hardwood. 

Duncan grabs the hand that Gigi holds out to him and lets her haul him to his feet. Standing at full height, he towers over her. The visions that flash through his head are a completely involuntary side effect of the terror that he’d just experienced. He imagines himself picking Gigi up and pushing her against the nearest wall and forgets his entire rant about illegal pets. Duncan fidgets and tugs at the hem of his boxers as all of the blood rushes from his brain to his cock. 

Oblivious to his dilemma, Gigi bowls over all of Duncan’s attempts to excuse himself. She pulls at his elbow insistently and leads him further into the apartment. “Come on, Fudge," she says, "I’m on a deadline let’s get this painting started.”

Duncan feels dazed from his possible head injury and emotional whiplash. “Painting? Are you an artist?” he asks. He peers over Gigi’s head and sees a long stretch of white canvas laid out across the living room floor. 

She jerks him to a stop next to the woven cloth and smirks. Leaning in, she snaps the waistband of his boxers playfully and purrs, “bingo, Fudge. Drop your drawers, time’s a wastin."

All logic flees at the brush of her warm fingers against his skin. Duncan nods dumbly and stammers, “uh, um, yeah, alright.”

\--

Body painting with Gigi turns out to be a lot less sexy than Duncan imagined. This has to be karma.

Gigi's surprisingly stubborn when it comes to her vision for the canvas and isn’t afraid to move his body _forcefully _to achieve it. Duncan has paint in places no man should. Another half an hour of this and he’s certain that his skin will have rubbed completely off. 

Disgruntled about the state of his now-deflated chafed, multicoloured cock, Duncan huffs a breath against the canvas and slurs, “are we finished yet?” 

Gigi’s kneeling on his lower back. She's got her hand tangled in his hair, pushing his face down into the paint uncomfortably. At his words, she tightens her hold and pulls his head into a kinked position on his neck. She presses his face down into the smear of magenta, black and blue one more time and finally, _finally_, lets up on her grip.

"It’s done," she sighs, sounding close to tears. “It’s so beautiful.”

She’s kind enough to hand Duncan a towel after they climb carefully off of the painting. He has to admit that it looks pretty good. They make good art.

He’s just about to tell her so when Gigi lands a hard smack across the cheek of his ass. Duncan yelps.

“Good work, Fudge,” she beams, lips breaking into a smile that’s real and genuine. Duncan’s skin tingles with more than just canvas burn. He feels a goofy smile stretch his own lips. He's a sucker for praise. Had she always been this cute though? He can't remember. He’d repressed the worm incident in self-defence.

Duncan's pulled out of his musings when Gigi asks, “now, what was it that had you so riled up earlier?”

He scratches at a patch of drying paint on his chest and chuckles evasively, “ah, it wasn’t important. I just wanted to—" he casts his eyes around for an excuse and spies a lumpy scarf thrown over the back of a chair “—invite you to join my knitting circle…”

Gigi bounces on her toes. Duncan catches the movement in his peripheral vision and whines out a noise that only dogs can hear. He stubbornly doesn’t look. 

Gigi claps her hands excitedly and says, “I love to knit! I’ll see a man about shearing his alpaca immediately. We can dye wool together next weekend!”

She dives at Duncan in her enthusiasm and wraps her arms around his waist, tucking her face into his chest. A big hand pats her awkwardly on the back. “Great...”

Duncan feels more than hears Gigi's delighted laugh. She tilts her head back, pushes up on her toes and presses a lingering kiss to his stubbled cheek. “What a wonderful surprise you are, Fudge! You’re not at all the heartless worm murderer I thought you were.”

Duncan leaves Gigi’s apartment feeling a strange mix of accomplishment and dread. What the fuck has he gotten himself into? And why does he feel like it might be good?

\-- 

He buys their first painting, aptly named ‘The Redemption of Cornelius Fudge,’ and gives it to Bill for Christmas along with a poorly knit pink, purple and blue scarf. 

The sour look on his face makes Duncan smile. He squeezes his arms around Gigi and thinks that maybe hobbies, like neighbours and emotional support turkeys, are good for the soul.


End file.
